Cuomo taps law professor for New York's top court

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has nominated a professor at the City University of New York School of Law to New York’s highest court.

Jenny Rivera, subject to Senate confirmation, will replace Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, who retired at the end of last year.

Rivera, a Bronx resident and New York native, has worked as staff attorney at Legal Aid Society of New York City, associate counsel for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and was clerk to then-U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor in Manhattan.

A graduate of Princeton and New York University School of Law, she was commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights from 2002 to 2007 and later state deputy attorney general for human rights under then-Attorney General Cuomo.